There has recently been proposed an electronic catalogue system which creates a desired electronic catalogue by a server in accordance with a request from a client. In this system, a Web server saves, as an electronic catalogue, an electronic file of a structured document (e.g., PDF file) which is uploaded from, e.g., a client. The server manages, as page parts, pages of a document which configures the electronic catalogue. The client designates a combination of arbitrary page parts, and the server creates an electronic catalogue by combining designated page parts into a new electronic document. The new electronic document is output to the client or downloaded by the client (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-337909).
A document is made up of pages arranged in order. A structured document such as a PDF document can be configured from one or a plurality of groups each containing one or a plurality of pages. A document containing a group has a hierarchical configuration of an entire document—groups—pages. The entire document can also contain a page which does not belong to any group. There is an electronic catalogue system which configures a structured electronic document in which a plurality of pages are grouped as candidates for one page. In this electronic catalogue system, the user can select each page from each group via a client, creating one catalogue.
When the conventional electronic catalogue system is used, complete static document data is created every time selected pages are combined even if electronic catalogue data which are combined and output from a server in accordance with an instruction from a client appear to be in the process of creation from the user's perspective. For this reason, the conventional electronic catalogue system poses the following problems.
(1) When the user has not finalized selection of a desired one of pages contained in a given group, all choices (i.e., all pages) belonging to the group must be combined. To perform a process of selecting one of choices in a group and combining the selected choice, other pages which have already been selected and currently form a catalogue must be newly reselected. This is because the combined document data is completed even in the process of creation.
(2) A page in which a plurality of pages (each page will be referred to as a reduced page) contained in one group are reduced and laid out may be created in advance and contained in original electronic catalogue data. In this case, even if one reduced page in the group is selected and the selection is finalized, the remaining reduced pages (i.e., unselected reduced pages) laid out on the same page are undesirably contained in the combined document.
(3) To cancel finalized selection of a page and reselect another page, the user must newly reselect and output even a group to which a finalized page belongs.